This is an interesting article in EDN magazine on boosting solar cell efficiency. It states that the basic principals have been demonstrated but claims it will take a few years to see how far efficiency can be pushed with the process.

Solar may not be cost competitive yet, but given what is happening to our weather, I think it is necessary to implement something that will ward off any increase in coal usage. What we risk by not doing it is our lives.

As I'm no engineer. An ethnic observation.

UCSD electrical engineering professors Paul Yu and Deli Wang are co-principal investigators on the project.

Are the Chinese cornering the solar market? I notice that a lot of the big solar firms produce in China. I own some shares in one of them (Suntech).

If you look through the electronics/computer trade papers, the large number of researchers with Chinese names working at US universities and US chartered corporations is striking. Of course, there are many Chinese who have been living here for their entire lives, and many of the women seem to keep their Chinese names after they get married, which tends to bias the statistics.

I also have STP. One has to have patience with this company, but they do seem to have a lot of longterm contracts.

Sovereign seems to be very fond of the notion that the Chinese (and the Japanese, and presumably other East Asians) are simply smarter than us, which is why he believes we have no hope of being able to compete with them.

Certainly, if you look at the ethnic percentages of the students in our graduate schools, particularly in the so-called STEM fields (STEM = science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), and even more so if you include the Indians along with the East Asians, the numbers should serve as a wake-up call.

I am currently reading several books on China and Chinese history. A real eye-opener is the book 1434: The Year A Magnificent Chinese Fleet Sailed To Italy And Triggered the Renaissance, by Gavin Menzies. This is a follow-up to an earlier book by the same author, 1421: The Year China Discovered America. I skimmed through that book and did not find it wholly persuasive...but am now thoroughly persuaded by the new book. I am also reading a dynastic history of China and of the capital cities of China down through the centuries (and millennia), and finally just bought but have not yet started reading The Man Who Loved China, which is the story of the very remarkable scholar Joseph Needham, who wrote a monumental multi-volume study of Chinese technology and science.

It really is true: for most of recorded history, China was the dominant civilization. We are the upstarts.

I think China will recover its dominant position by the year 2030 or so.

Unlike Sovereign, though, I attribute their superiority to cultural differences and not genetic ones.

At the risk of hi-jacking Phil's thread, I'd like to pursue this issue of ethnic intelligence. It is bad form nowadays to ascribe intelligence to blood, to inheritance, and Shockley got into hot water, and Murray also over the idea that certain races are inferior or superior intellectually--on average. Yet, we all are aware, or should be aware of Jewish abilities in science, medicine, law, humor, movie-directing and producing, commerce, violin and piano playing, etc. Few Jewish military commanders, though. Similarly, Blacks seem to excel at sports, popular music, and again, humor. Black Americans seem to have a highly developed sense of rhythm, as do Black Africans. Is it racist to point this out? Is it sexist to point out that virtually no distinguished composers were women? That there were few homosexual Jazz horn players, and that the one Gay Jazzman I can recall played the Vibraphone? That there were few distinguished women Jazz instrumentalists, but a bevy of great singers?

So we must realize that there have been plenty of patterns, but I think out of sentimental reasons we ascribe differences to cultural conditioning, and not innate differences.

Re: scientists, I agree with you, LeRoy. Fifty years ago there were plenty of white scientists at the top of their fields, but they have been dying off. Most of the good heads have instead headed to Wall Street or into law and medicine. Social conditioning plays a big part in who enters various professions. But it is not everything.

I am used to being hi-jacked on Slate; we all should be by now. It seems to be the way the game is played. The only thing that bothers me is that after some diversion the root topic is not picked up and continued.

As to the particular thread you are pursuing, I would agree that you are treading on sensitive ground. It does seem that, if physical traits can be associated with genetic paths and the operation of the brain is physical (electro-chemical principally), then one should assume that there is a high probability that the functioning of individual minds can also be associated with genetic paths. Having said that, I feel obliged to point out that these paths are somewhat uncertain. In the particular case of the Jews, whom you have used as an example, it is not even agreed whether it is a religion, an ethnic group, or evenly the track of progenies of mothers considered serially Jewish (whatever that means, by the way). I happen to think that the relationship of frequent appearance of nominal Jews in certain trades is a matter of tradition. I think its root was in the era leading up to the Industrial Revolution. In Europe, people who were considered to be Jewish (however that was defined) were banned from owning land. This led to a disproportionate concentration in industries such as banking, lending, law, etc., which were disassociated from land ownership. When the Industrial Revolution suddenly devalued the ownership of agricultural land, the Jews found themselves in the fortunate position of being in those trades which could profit widely from the change in relative importance of agriculture and industry. The guild tradition and knowing what paid off wer enough to steer future generations of European Jews in this preordained direction. The present just reflect the past and since it seems to rely on tradition, may or may not be associated with genetics in a group which is ill-defined.

In the particular case of the Jews, whom you have used as an example, it is not even agreed whether it is a religion, an ethnic group, or evenly the track of progenies of mothers considered serially Jewish.

I guess I'm inclined to think ethnic group, since many of them were atheists or Marxists by the 19th century, and most still had 100% Jewish ancestors, as intermarriage wasn't yet that common. I suppose I'm really talking about Jews born between 1850 and 1950, who excelled in the professions by an order of magnitude beyond their numbers. That is, Jews might have made up 2% of the population of the western world (W. Europe and the Americas), yet totally dominated some fields--not just banking. Take Einstein and Freud, for example. Neither was the sole Jew in his field. But enough of the Jewish over-achievements, which ought to be well known by now.

I recall reading a survey of intelligence which showed that Ashkenazi Jews had the highest overall average I.Q. (it was something like 110), followed by Japanese, I believe. These were groups in America. I think other surveys have generally found that Jews and east Asiatics scored higher than Goy whites, with Mexicans, and then Blacks at the bottom. Native Americans may have been below Blacks. Clearly, most of this is socio-economic, but maybe not all. I.Q. tests are also acknowledged to be fallible and culturally determined.

I need to make the observation that the Jews of the Old Testament were closely related to the Arabs, also of the Old Testament, and I would have expected that they would look the same. However, having grown up in NYC, where there is an abundance of recent (after 1900 or so) arrivals from Eastern Europe, many of them Jewish, I can attest that it was pretty darned hard to see the physical characteristics which were different between Jewish and non-Jewish people from the same countries. Thus, I would think that the Jews who actually look "Jewish" are mainly the long-term dwellers of the Middle East (i.e., their families have been there since Bible days. Now, when Sovereign8 reads this, I know he is going to dispute my observation and claim that the differences are easily discernable but, unless he can show that those fur hats are genetically derived, I don't think I will be agreeing with him.

I know that the Jewish side of my family--which came from Vilnius, I think--had some ancestors who looked like fair-haired Spaniards and some blue eyed and blond haired, who looked like typical Lithuanians/Poles. I think some Jews moved around in those days--at least once in a generation. They weren't just stuck in the shtetl. Bottom line: there's probably quite a gradation in what are perceived to be Jewish physical characteristics (curly hair, big hooked nose, swarthy complexion, etc.).

My father's side of the family also came from Vilnius. Strangely, because we don't know when his parents were born, we don't know what country they came from!

Genedio: other surveys have generally found that Jews and east Asiatics scored higher than Goy whites, with Mexicans, and then Blacks at the bottom. Native Americans may have been below Blacks. Clearly, most of this is socio-economic, but maybe not all.

LeRoy: While I am not arguing that there are no genetic differences in what is broadly defined as 'intelligence' between the various 'races', I believe the observed differences in IQ scores are more readily explained by cultural differences. Both Jewish and East Asian (Confucian) cultures lay a strong emphasis on intellectual pursuits and feature a high degree of respect for scholarship and learning. People from these cultures tend to be studious. Contrast that with the sub-culture associated with Hispanics and Blacks in America, where intellectual activity is positively denigrated. Black students who wish to do well in school are accused of 'acting white'. Barack Obama faced this himself when he was young.

I point out that attributing these differences to culture can be every bit as politically incorrect as blaming them on genetic differences. Ex-Governor of Colorado Dick Lamm found himself in very hot water when he publicly complained about the antagonism towards education in the Hispanic sub-culture.

Some folks don't want this topic discussed, at all.

Phil notes that the Jews of the Old Testament were closely related to the Arabs, which is unequivocally true. They were both Semitic groups, with Arabic and Hebrew both being Semitic languages.

But European Jewry stemmed from a different source, which helps to explain Phil's other observation that there seemed to be little physical difference between the Jews from Eastern Europe and other Eastern Europeans. Most European Jewry is descended from the Khazars, who were a Turkic people who migrated from Central Asia to the Ukrainian steppes around 900 AD and became converted to Judaism during a time when it was a proselytizing religion just like Islam and Christianity. The Khazar kingdom was powerful for perhaps a century and a half, and then was destroyed by other invading peoples from the Central Asiatic steppes, dispersing the Khazar people all across eastern Europe. But there were many other Turkic groups that invaded Europe from Central Asia over the long millenium from ~500 AD to ~1500 AD, and who became absorbed into the gene pool of Eastern Europe, intermixing with all the various Slavic and Germanic groups that were also there. There were the Huns, the Avars, the Bulgars, the Magyars, and, well, I could go on.

The distinction between Jews who came from a European background and those with a Middle Eastern background is well recognized in Israel today, and causes some political tension in that country.

Combining your two points: that Jews indeed score very high on intelligence tests, and that there seem to be few physical differences between E European Jews and comparable Goyim, it occurs to me that the sub-group which scored the very highest in the survery was the German Jew. The Henry Kissinger type, IOW. These were precisely the people that Hitler was going after first.

Speaking of Kissinger, or Albert Einstein, or Sigmund Freud, or Arnold Schoenberg, or Karl Marx, Heinrich Heine, and other German-speaking Jews, it does strike me that they did look different from ordinary Krauts...Nevertheless, these people were the elect. The tippy-top of humanity, at least as far as our I.Q. tests would show.

It's possible that they looked different, but you would have to shave the beards (or in Einstein's case, cut his hair) and maybe change the clothing before you did the comparison. If I try to visualize Ben Bernanke, all I really see is the beard. If you look at a collection of pictures of Einstein here, you will see that he looks pretty, well, German, except for the whacky hair in many of the pictures.

I looked for a picture of Bernanke without the beard, but he was apparently born with it.